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Famous Daves – The Story of Meeting 5 Davids in 6 Weeks

Alright, how’s this for a random blog… today I’m writing only about Davids. Yep – that’s right, people named David. In college, I knew all of one David. (Shout out to David Hollander – my first friend at Mizzou!) Then somehow, during the last six weeks of my travels, I have met FIVE Davids!

Aww – Thanks for this sentimental moment Facebook

David Hollander and I at The Second City comedy club in Chicago after Graduation! Such a fun night!

Over the years there have been plenty of noteworthy Davids:

David Letterman

David Bowie

Dave Thomas (founder of Wendy’s – hellooooo)

David Cook (American Idol Winner, which in itself is not that impressive to me but he was from Blue Springs, MO, where I’m kind of from, so that’s why that’s neat.)

And we’ll even include ‘Famous Dave’s BBQ’ as an honorable mention just because of its perfect name.

In fact, the name David is the 6th most popular boys name in the last 100 years. (That’s not a made up statistic – I actually looked it up and found it on the Social Security website!)

Given there are so many Davids out there, it should come as no surprise that I’d meet so many of them. But, of course, it still was. Then today I decided NOT to go to bed at 8:00 p.m. like I really wanted to and instead hit the gym, only to meet another person named David. Having met four Davids in the last seven days alone, I decided it was officially blog-worthy.

(Also, I’ve been thinking of doing a weekly blog called “New Friend Friday” and this basically functions as that I suppose.)

The next David, or rather Dave, I met was, from the tattoo parlor in Monterey last week. Not to play favorites, but given his excellent choice of dinner destinations, he may top the list.

The third Dave was my knight in shining armor this week. This was Dave the tow truck driver who rescued me when the company car broke down in L.A. on Wednesday. Face tattoos aside, including some nice ink near the eyebrows, he seemed like a really nice guy.

I have yet to actually meet this next Dave, but I will tomorrow so I’m keeping him on the list. This is Dave Ihlenfeld, a former Hotdogger with the Wienermobile, who currently works for Family Guy. He also wrote the book “Dog Days: A Year in the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.” Tomorrow Abe and I are meeting up with Dave, his friends and his family to give them a tour of the company car and we’re hoping to get an insider look at the Family Guy offices along the way! How awesome is that going to be?! Don’t worry – I’ll post a full recap next Touristy Tuesday!

And finally on this list is the most recent David I met. I had talked myself out of running for the day, but chatting with one of the aforementioned Dave’s (I’ll give you a hint – it wasn’t Face Tattoo Dave) I was up and decided to hit the gym. I was reluctantly making my way through seven miles on the Dreadmill when a middle-aged man stepped up to the machine beside me. These treadmills are awkwardly close to each other as it is, so I joked with him as he amped up his speed, “Are we racing?” Turns out he was the wrong person to joke with because this guy runs a marathon a few minutes shy of breaking 3:00!

All of the sudden that seven mile run went from being pretty miserable to quite entertaining. We chatted about races, track workouts, and how I could eventually BQ. Having been a runner possibly longer than I’ve been alive, this guy knew quite a bit and gave me some good advice!

To be honest, I really wanted to ask this David to take a picture (no surprise to anyone who knows me) but I didn’t want to be creepy. And honestly, no matter how good the conversation was, it would have definitely come off creepy asking to take a picture in the hotel fitness center!

So there you have it. Five Davids in six weeks. I’ll keep you posted if I run into any more along the way!